10 Ways to Create More Margin in Your Time

10 Ways to Create More Margin in Your Time

Isn’t this a great question?
Because, aren’t you being asked to do so all the time? Isn’t your
standard reply to the question “how are you?”—BUSY? Aren’t we all?
How do you create more margin in your schedule—to do the things you want to do and the things you need to do?

Here are a 10 tips to help create more time margin:

Start your day with God.
Of course a pastor would say this, but it is amazing if I start the
day talking to God about my day how much better my day flows. If I ask
God for margin in my time and to help me complete my “to do” list, He
actually seems to listen and help me. (Try it!)Prioritize your life.
It is important to have a life purpose. What do you value most?
Without knowing this we find ourselves chasing after many things that
have little value. Have you discovered why you are here and what God has
most for you in life and in this season of life? If not, start here.Make sure your priorities line up with your desires.
This sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it is not. Many times,
we say our purpose is one thing, but what we actually do is something
entirely different. This is often because people are going to do what
people want to do. We may need to ask God to change our heart and plant
in us His desires.Stop unnecessary time-wasters.
If you “veg” out every night on three-plus hours of television or
browsing Facebook, don’t be surprised you didn’t get to spend a lot of
quality time with your children or friends. Most of us form bad habits
or have unorganized methods of doing something that waste bulks of our
time. Make a list of what you spend the most time doing and see if there
are places you can cut. (I suspect there will be.)Work smarter.
I can’t imagine being successful and leading a team without some
system of calendaring your week or keeping a planner, yet I know so many
pastors and other ministers who simply handle things as they come up
rather than work with a plan. The benefit of organization is that you
can do what you need to do more efficiently and faster and be more
productive. Give a shoutout to the checklist people!Schedule times to organize.
This is so important, but most people don’t do it. Spending an hour
or two actually planning the week will make the whole week more
productive. Usually for me this is the first part of my week. If I know
where I’m headed and my work space is organized for efficiency, it’s
much easier to get everything done and still handle distractions, which
are sure to come.Do the most necessary things first.
You may have tried the A/B/C list of scheduling priorities. It
doesn’t matter what system you use, but the important thing is you have
one and use it to help your rate of completion. (And, this may be rest,
it might be family or it could be the project you have to complete
today.)Don’t say yes to everything.
Be picky with your time allotment based again on your end priorities and goals.Schedule down time.
Especially when my boys were younger, I would write on my calendar
time for them. This may sound mechanical, but it allows you to be there
and keeps things and others from filling up your schedule. (I still
schedule this time for Cheryl—and, it sounds counterproductive, but we
get away even more frequently during busier seasons.)Evaluate your schedule often.
Plans should not be implemented and then ignored. Develop your plan
to create margin in your life, then periodically review the plan to see
how you are doing and what needs to be changed.
For some people just reading this is laborsome. I especially
encourage those of you geared this way to push through the difficult
part of this and give it a try. You will be surprised what a positive
difference it will have on your life.

Ron Edmondson

Ron Edmondson is a pastor and church leader passionate
about planting churches, helping established churches thrive, and
assisting pastors and those in ministry think through leadership,
strategy and life. Ron has over 20 years business experience, mostly as a
self-employed business owner, and he's been helping churches grow
vocationally for over 10 years.